Cheney High School

by Saki

When I met Linnea, my pen pal, I was little bit nervous and I was sure that she was nervous also. Then she had next class, so she took me to her class which was Language Arts. As I entered the classroom, she began making groups of chairs for us. I was surprised because in Japan, if we have some guests in our class, we never move our desks and make groups. Then, the class had started. First of all, the teacher played the CD for learning vocabulary. He chose famous musician’s music, not like text book CDs. I was surprised again because it was rap music, but Linnea told me it has many vocabularies that we can learn and use for SAT tests. Next was about Independent Clause and Dependant Clause. Teacher asked students to answer the questions and immediately student answered for those questions.

Next part was reading section. They were doing some problems from past SAT tests and they were solving the problem one by one. Before they started answering, they formed a group, no matter how many people are there in a group, and used small white board to write the answer. When they get answers correct, teacher has a golf put in front of the class so student gets chance to put the ball and if you sank it, you will get a candy. Also, if you can give reasons why you chose the correct answer, you are also going to get a candy. This game is all point system and the group who gets highest score will get a Homework Pass that you can use for next assignment. I thought this is really interesting because Japan never has this kind of activity and we never eat candies at school, especially during the class. Also, we never play games during the class like putting the golf ball. I think participation was the biggest point, but I don’t Japanese students are not participating. Japanese students just needs time to think what to speak in English. I think they can answer the questions if it is in Japanese. However, we are in MFWI learning English so I think we have to work on that more.

I found many interesting points by visiting Cheney High School and meeting students there and became friends. Also, I could have a chance to ask about my questions for my cultural difference project. I had a great time there.